We had one turn up at the Bedford River Festival some years ago and stay around for a while. It became quite a celebrity!😃

The Eden Project has as many fascinating unannounced species as signposted ones! Here are 3 from a trip on Monday: Cornish Dandelion (T. cornubiense), Ring-legged Earwig, and a stunning Adanson's House Jumper spider (Hasarius adansoni), found on a plant in the gift shop!!

2 Unarmed Stick Insects on the side of the house where my son and his family are staying in Rock, north Cornwall, were an unexpected but wonderful find today!

Common Hermit Crab and the spectacular St Piran's Hermit Crab emerging from their shells (Polzeath rockpooling, Cornwall).

The stunning south Devon speciality Dandelion, Taraxacum pseudomarklundii, on a bridge at Tavistock today - look at those leaves!!

Common Frog & Common Toad at Clophill Lakes this afternoon

Even though I’ve really wanted to find it, I don’t think I would have been able to stand examining every flower bell of every plant that I came across!🤣
Hope you’re keeping well, Seth

After literally shaking hundreds of Grape Hyacinth stems over a number of years it was both joyful and a relief to finally find the associated smut, Antherospora hortensis! 😄

First flowering Cowslip of the year and a Common Toad in its usual place behind the compost heaps

Robins are known for their fights, even to the death. Blue Tits….not so much!

Thanks for your thoughts, Fay. I was aware of the reflexed margins of the leaves, but I hadn't thought about the fact that the petioles are elongated, too, although it was staring me in the face. I find it all absolutely fascinating!

One of the big signs of Spring for me: male Hairy-footed Flower Bees buzzing and zipping around in the Kings Arms Garden, Ampthill

10+ years searching - totalling countless hours staring at early blossom from various trees and shrubs - today I finally encountered the early spring hoverfly, Melangyna quadrimaculata on flowering Blackthorn. I couldn’t catch it, so the photo is from Steve Falk’s Flickr resource: my 9500th species

This year I'm going to try and catch up on a number of the fascinating Downy Mildews that I've yet to see. This is Peronospora ficariae - common on Lesser Celandine leaves in Lidlington graveyard, Bedfordshire.

Sequencing confirmed the species as Butyriboletus subappeniculatus

Really pleased to record this Scenicus cingulatus spider on the Clophill Lakes NR fence yesterday: only the second post 1990 record of this species from Bedfordshire.

The hoverfly season got underway for me on Thursday when a male Cheilosia grossa turned up on a Willow Catkin at Clophill Lakes NR - at 14.21 hrs - cue a short song and dance!!
Today I came across another one at Storton's Pits NR, Northampton which returned frequently to bask on my hand!

The beautiful Turkeytail (Trametes versicolor) and Splitgill (Schizophyllum commune) at Clophill Lakes NR

Spain has been very cold, very windy and very wet, too, so it was great to find this Paper Wasp and Egyptian Grasshopper here in Almeria earlier today.

I was really surprised to find a Great Willow Aphid whilst sieving leaf litter at Clophill Lakes NR yesterday. Apparently they can be quite active this time of year - mainly on the tree, I guess - but disappear from April to June when no one has discovered where they go! Leaf litter perhaps?

Teesdale botanist and mountain rescue team founder turns 100 Dr Margaret Bradshaw receives a card from King Charles and Queen Camilla on her 100th birthday.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
In 2024 I spent a day in Margaret’s company on an Alchemilla workshop where she climbed over a 5-bar gate and was up and down on her knees demonstrating various plant features. In the afternoon I held her hand as we walked beside the River Tees. What an amazing woman!

A wonderful suite of winter-flying moths on the Clophill Lakes NR visitor centre: Spring Usher, Winter Moth & Early Moth.

When I prepared for Saturday’s New Year Plant Hunt at Clophill Lakes NR I thought that 15 species of flowering plants would be our maximum total, so I was amazed (and a tad alarmed) to record 28 species with 25 people present.
Field Penny-cress, Thyme-leaved Speedwell and Musk Mallow pictured here.

My son, John, really wanted to experience the weird and wonderful Starfish Fungus at Oxshott Common in Surrey. Work prevented a day visit, so we went down at night: crazy, but fun. The fruiting fungi are going over now but a single egg is showing promise!

Following the visit to West Cowes Cemetery I took the chain-link ferry across the river in order to visit East Cowes Cemetery where this beauty was waiting for me: Podoscypha multizonata 😃

Clavulinopsis umbrinella under Cedar in Northwood Cemetery, West Cowes, Isle of Wight this morning

Pterula multifida, a birthday gift at Parkhurst Forest, Isle of Wight 😃

It was nice to catch up with one of the Clophill Lakes Otters this afternoon, if briefly!

Wow, wow, wow: Mycena pseudocorticola and, finally, Mycena meliigena, occurring together on moss-covered oak branches in quantity (this is just a small section). A friend spent years looking for M. meliigina every time she came across M. pseudocorticola! [Rushmere CP, Bucks]

Piggyback Rosegill (Volvariella surrecta) on Clouded Funnel near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, today.